North African Americans are Americans with origins in the region of North Africa. This group includes Americans of Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia. People from North Africa have been in the United States since the sixteenth century. Some of the early explorers who accompanied the Spanish on their expeditions in the United States were North Africans, a group that also contributed to the settlement of some Spanish colonies of that country. Currently, the North African population in the United States exceeds 800,000 people.